I know I’m in the minority when I say that I prefer to use my ps5 controller when playing. It just feels a lot better to me and D4 did a really good job with how it plays using controller. I have played since launch using controller with no issues until last season. This issue started when the expansion came out and I was able to find a workaround to fix it. Now I’m trying to play the new season and the controller issue persists with my workaround no longer fixing the problem.
The way I fixed it before was simply closing Steam. I had tried to launch D4 one day before Steam was able to open with my controller plugged in and it worked with no issues. Strange but it made me so happy when I found it out. I was able to launch and play the game using my controller as long as Steam was not open. Previously if I had Steam open and my controller was plugged in - when I try to launch D4 it would play the opening “Blizzard Entertainment” then “Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred” then I would hear a bit of the opening music then it just freezes and no matter how long I wait the game would never load to the character screen. This only happens when my controller is plugged in. If I tried to plug my controller in after I had launched the game and logged into my character in town the game would freeze and I had to use task manager to end task. I also tried using an xbox controller to no avail.
I know this will probably not be fixed anytime soon because realistically I might be one of the 0.001% of the playerbase that prefer controller over mouse and keyboard to play on PC. I just wanted to shine a light on the issue. I hope it will be fixed for next season as I really do enjoy playing Diablo 4. For now I will muddle through using mouse and keyboard.